Don’t complain about your partner to your friends

It makes things harder.

Leave Her Wild from the At Wild Woman series by Amanda Sandlin

Picking up the phone to call a friend after a fight with your partner can be such a relief. They get us. But what if that emotional release had negative side effects?

How you see your partner is everything in a relationship

Relationship researcher John Gottman has an important piece of advice for us:

Seeing your relationship as a good one is vital for relationship satisfaction. Sharing that appreciation with each other makes us happy.

But what if you don’t see your partner in a positive light anymore? They irritate you to no end. What if each positive thought about your partner is immediately followed by a “Yeah, but…”?

Talking to friends: Support with negative side effects?

That’s often when we go running to our friends to complain. In my experience, men don’t tend to do this as much, but women lean on their girlfriends for support. I could tell you the biggest struggle in each of my female friends’ relationships in a heartbeat. I don’t think my boyfriend can say the same about his friends.

Women, when we feel bad we rally our friends around us. They pick us up, share…